


where is my mind?

by mrspotatohead



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Anxiety, Bandom - Freeform, Crying, Depression, Dissociation, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Feels, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Heavy Angst, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Josh Dun is a Softie, Love, M/M, Men Crying, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, One Shot, Protectiveness, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 10:48:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10463160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrspotatohead/pseuds/mrspotatohead
Summary: josh gets lost inside himself sometimes, but tyler is always there to bring him back to the surface.tw for suicidal thoughts, stay safe guys!





	

Josh stared at the ceiling with aching eyes, numbly watching the pale morning light filter into his bedroom through the familiar drawn curtains. Specs of dust were dancing in the glow of the sunbeams that shimmered across his dark blue walls, and he admired the sight silently from where he lay. He knew that at one point, he would have found it rather magnificent to look at.

He took a deep breath and wondered briefly when the sun had risen, and why it had taken so long for him to notice its presence. He didn't know how long he'd been awake for, or when he'd fallen asleep. His bones hurt and his muscles were sore, as if he'd just ran a marathon, but he knew he hadn't moved for over twenty-four hours. He was the worst type of exhausted, the type that had no real reason behind it.

Birds twittered in the distance and the laughter of children playing in the park across the street disturbed the hollow silence. A lump formed in the back of his throat, but no tears burned in his eyes. He almost wished he would cry, because then at least he'd be doing something other than letting the seconds slip by, time he would never get back, time he couldn't stop himself from wasting. He felt like the slightest touch would shatter him completely, like he was made of cracked glass that was about to crumble at any given moment.

Something deep inside of him felt extremely wrong. Frustrated thoughts screamed at him from inside of his head; he was utterly torn. Was there any point in getting up and going through the motions when he knew it was pointless? He was insignificant, and so were his worries, but they felt like the weight of the whole world pressing down on his quivering shoulders. It didn't matter what he did, it was just the nature of life - he wasn't even an insect on the windscreen of the universe. He could stay in bed for the rest of eternity and let himself waste away into nothingness and it wouldn't make a difference to anybody. He wished that he had the power to change the makings of his being, wished he had the power to do the impossible.

His phone buzzed on his bedside table for the fourth time in an hour. He allowed himself to glance at it, ignoring the dull feeling that seemed to have taken over his extremities. He knew who it was, he knew there one was only one person in the world that would demand a response from him so adamantly: Tyler.

A beat of sudden anguish coursed through his chest at the thought of his friend, it was blinding and harsh and it disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived. It was the first thing he had felt in days, a kaleidoscope of blackbluepurple energy that left him with shaking hands and a trembling mouth. It was torment in its purest form.

He heard a clock chime lowly across town. A vague jolt of surprise ran through him when he realized it was already eleven in the morning, though he registered it in an odd and disjointed way, like it was only the echo of an emotion.

Forcing himself to sit up, he felt his joints crack at the much needed movement as he swung his legs over his bed and stood up slowly on unsteady feet. There was a dusty glass of water next to his phone and a half eaten granola bar that he'd given up on when it made him feel like vomiting. He wondered how many days ago that was, two - possibly three?

His knees shook with weakness and fatigue, but he forced himself to pad across his messy room until he reached the bathroom, with its flickering yellow light and crammed cabinet that was overflowing with things he didn't even use. He felt like he was merely playing the part of himself in some fucked up movie, rather than actually living his life. Placing his hands on either side of the sink, he tried to gather the courage to look at his reflection in the grimy mirror.

When he finally managed to meet his own gaze, an involuntary shudder of revulsion pulsed through him. His eyes were bloodshot and the bags beneath them stood out so sharply against his pale and pallid skin that they looked like bruises. His hair was a faded red mess, and it stuck out all over the place no matter how much he tried to smooth it down. His cheeks were sunken in, the bones more prominent than they had ever been, and he stared transfixed at his lips which were chapped and bitten raw; he hadn't realized that they were lightly bleeding until now. He looked like a ghost, he didn't even look real. He was blurred around the edges, an insubstantial mass.

His brain short circuited dementedly, and he visualized himself as a decaying skull with animals burrowing into his eye sockets and flowers growing six feet above his head, brighter and more beautiful than he had ever been in life. He wondered if that was eternity. He wondered if that was where he belonged. It was a disconcerting thought, but it was comforting in the least likeliest of ways. To envision himself in such a state made him feel alive, because he knew that dying meant he was definitely still human; as long as he could die he definitely still existed. 

Feeling more and more like he was stuck in some kind of sick trance, he found his toothbrush and squeezed out some toothpaste. The mundane action seemed to rouse a small and forgotten part of his mind, it almost made him feel properly awake again. The artificial taste of mint seared his taste buds, reminding him of the sleepy mornings of his childhood before he would head off to school.

His phone rang loudly in the next room, and he jumped at the noise. He recognized the ringtone instantly, and wished with all of his heart that he was brave enough to answer. He wasn't.

He spat into the sink and closed his eyes, feeling the blood pound mercilessly in his head. There was a gentle sort of desperation in the way that he glared at the pills in the cabinet before him, an unhinged kind of wistfulness. He grappled with his thoughts, trying and failing to keep them at bay. 

How many would it take to kill him? Was he more or less fragile than he felt?

He'd heard it loads of times before, that suicide wasn't the answer. Everyone was so sure that he had so many things to stay alive for. He wondered what they would all think if they saw him for what he really was: a shell, a fake, a failure. They didn't know that he felt like he was half dead already, with his rotten heart and his decomposing brain, and wasn't it easier to just finish the job?

He leaned forward, bowing his head in defeat, though he was brought to a sudden halt when he heard an insistent, unexpected knocking and a voice yelling his name from outside, down on the porch. He stood up straight immediately, glancing around the bathroom with wide eyes as he tried to figure out what to do, as if the answer would appear out of thin air, though he already knew that he had only one option. Trepidation and a half hearted resentment filled his every pore, but at the same time he knew he should've expected something like this. He'd been stupid to think that he'd be left alone.

He emerged from his bedroom and hastened down the stairs, pausing in the living room to watch the front door with a weary gaze. A clock ticked monotonously in the corner, the only lull of sound in the otherwise silent room.

"Josh!" Tyler's voice called from the other side of the door, sounding half worried and half exasperated. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed the sound of it.

He unlocked the front door with slight reluctance, and his friend had pushed his way inside before it was even fully open. Tyler was a flurry of flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, and he brought with him a refreshing gust of cool air from outside. He was carrying a pizza box in one hand and a plastic bag full of drinks in the other. Josh stared at him noiselessly, words that only half made sense died in his throat.

"Josh, just because we're on a break doesn't mean you can just disappear on me -," he began, a note of humour in his tone as he turned around, but only when he got a good look at his friend did he stop talking. His face fell and his steady gaze raked over the other boy slowly, mouth hanging half open as he did so. There was a beat of awful silence, and the atmosphere crawled with the discomfort of it.

"Uhm - you, you're wearing shorts," Josh said quietly, aware that he sounded like an idiot, but it was the only thing he could manage to get out. His voice was scratchy and cracked from not being used in so long. It sounded just as wrecked as he felt.

"Yeah," Tyler nodded, alarm instantly igniting in his expression, though he quickly tried to hide it.

"And a t-shirt," he continued softly, his stomach felt leaden, poisonous and unbelievably sick.

"Yeah, I am," his friend agreed warily, setting down the food and the bag on the couch, but not once did he take his eyes off the other boy.

"Is it warm outside?" he questioned, and his tone was tinged with undiluted despair.

"Kind of, yeah. It's spring."

"Fuck," Josh swore under his breath, a bubble of suffocating panic had risen in his chest. It felt like it was choking him from the inside out.

"Josh, what's-,"

"Last time I left the house," he interrupted before he could stop himself, he didn't feel in control of his own body. "It was snowing. I remember because it was just after we'd finished touring, and the ice looked really fucking pretty in the light of the moon. And it was such a clear night, the stars were out and everything. It was so beautiful. Fuck, it was so beautiful."

Tyler had frozen on the spot, his fists were clenched by his sides and he was considering the other boy with a calculated type of concern, like he was trying to figure him out.

"Okay," he breathed finally, like he was forcing himself to be calm. "It's okay, you're okay. Let's go to your room, yeah?"

He led the way without waiting for an answer, and Josh followed like a lost child.

He closed the door behind him and turned to see Tyler pulling open the curtains, so that a piercing golden light spilled through the unobscured window. He watched quietly as his friend cracked it open and an immediate warm breeze shivered through the bedroom, rustling his sheets and the numerous spare bits of paper that were scattered on his desk. Then he sat down unceremoniously on the mattress and gestured for Josh to do the same with a reassuring grin that looked slightly forced.

"Sorry Ty," Josh was the first to break the short silence, surprising them both. He felt a great rush of sorrow, like he needed to apologize for taking up space in the world.

"What for?"

"You know," he shrugged uncomfortably. "Not answering your texts, and stuff. I've just been - I've just been, I don't know, tired I suppose."

He knew it was a weak excuse and shame burned hotly in the base of his stomach, he found that he was unable to meet the other boy's leveled stare. He never was a good liar.

"Tired?" Tyler asked, both eyebrows raised. An unanticipated burst of appreciation for his friend swept over him, but he still couldn't bring himself to tell the truth. He wasn't even sure what the truth was anymore.

"Yeah," he nodded, and then shrugged. "From touring."

"Can we not do this?" the other boy interjected, crossing his arms at the lackluster response. It was the first time he had seemed even close to irritated since he'd arrived.

"What do you mean?"

"Just don't fucking bullshit me, okay? Something's not right with you, man," he explained, and though he was clearly somewhat frustrated, his voice shook as he spoke. A tidal wave of guilt threatened to drown Josh entirely at the sound of it, but he felt like all of his strings were drawn tight, his stance was rigid and stiff. All of his defenses were on high alert.

"I'm not bullshitting you - I'm just," he shook his head helplessly, faltering. The justification tasted horribly acidic and bitter on his tongue. 

"Just what?" Tyler said, and he said it with such conviction that the words hung heavily in the air between them long after they'd left his mouth. Josh looked down at the bed sheet tiredly, picking at a hole in the fabric. He didn't want to fight; he didn't want to do anything anymore - that was the problem.

"I don't know," he admitted, a shadow of hopelessness falling over his face. His friend watched him closely, he gave him a swift and searching look that made him feel like he was being put under a lie detector. It was a peculiar sensation.

"What's going on, Josh?"

"I haven't been feeling well," he tried to evade the question, but the other boy's eyes flashed and he waited defiantly for something more. There was a stubbornness in his face, the way his chin was raised and his brow was furrowed, that meant that he wasn't going to give up without a fight.

"I can't seem to get out of bed," he pressed when he couldn't stand the debilitating silence any longer. He kept his eyes determinedly lowered, feeling his cheeks flush with colour for the first time in weeks.

"Why not?"

"I think it's me. I think there's something really wrong with me. Inside my head, you know. Everybody else just kind of... _exists_ in a way that I'll never be able to. I'm a void," he felt like he was explaining it wrong, but the smothering weight in his chest lightened ever so slightly as he spoke.

"What do you mean?" Tyler's voice was gentle, but there was an unmistakable underlying note of worry. Another gust of wind ran through the room, a welcome but short lived distraction.

"I-," he swallowed, the lump in his throat was writhing. "I don't think there's any point in me trying anymore, when it's fruitless. I'll never be the way I want to be. I have this version of myself in my mind, and he's talented, and he's smart, and he's not a fuck up. He's more of a person than I'll ever be."

"Don't say that," there it was, that harsh tone that Josh had only heard his friend use on a few occasions during the years they had known each other.

"I thought you wanted the truth?"

"That's not the truth, Josh, it's not," he insisted, his voice sounded thick and the other boy looked up quickly despite himself, shocked to see tears gleaming in Tyler's honeyed eyes. He reached forwards and entwined his hand with his friend's before he knew what he was doing, hating himself for causing the one person that he loved so much pain. He knew, in that moment, that he was a burden.

However, the human touch was so welcome and so real, and he felt like it tethered him to the world around him. It connected him to the place in which he felt so deeply that he did not belong. Tyler stroked his finger over his friend's thumb softly, and Josh noticed with a pleasant shock, a shock like sliding into a warm bath, that his expression was filled with a subdued tenderness.

"I didn't want to upset you, Tyler," he said after a while, chewing at the skin on his lip. His friend glanced up momentarily and then back down at their joined hands, there was a slight crease in his forehead. Josh felt the urge to reach forward and smooth it out, to simply make all of the worries that swam around inside his head disappear. 

"I care about you a lot, you know that, right?" he replied, pointedly disregarding the statement.

"Yeah."

"And I honestly think you can be anything you want to be. God, you're like every fucking lovely cliche I've ever written about. I think you're one of those wondrous people that don't realize their own brilliance. You're like the fucking sun, you don't need anybody's permission to shine - you just sort of _do_ ," his voice was no more than a reverent whisper, but the words repeated themselves on a loop inside Josh's head, tiny flecks of pure light in the vast vacuum of his thoughts.

"Tyler-,"

"Sh. It's alright. I promise, it's alright. I can help you, okay? We can get you help," he reassured, as if he was talking to a wounded animal. Josh felt his eyes glaze over, freezing cold shards of ice stabbed at his heart.

"Help? What do you mean?" he visibly panicked, trying to hold back a surge of white hot terror.

"You know what I mean. You know what you need."

"What? But - but," he blustered, grasping at straws as he tried to find an excuse but the familiar lie, the pitiful 'i'm fine', couldn't make it past his lips.

"-But I'm scared," he finished lamely, his throat tightening as he said it. Tyler closed his eyes as if it physically pained him to hear, and he brought their hands up to his mouth and placed a light kiss on Josh's sharp knuckles. The taught apprehension that had settled in his stomach slackened faintly.

"It's normal to be scared, but you don't have to be. You've got me, and I've got you. That's all we need, isn't it? That's all we've ever needed," he encouraged with a lop sided smile, bringing up his spare hand to wipe a stray hair out of the other boy's face. It felt nice. 

Josh didn't know what to say, everything sounded like an understatement, so he merely nodded.

"I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to be really honest with me," Tyler muttered after a short while in which they both watched the birds flitting past the open window.

"Okay."

"Have you - did you hurt yourself?" he sounded like he hated asking the question as much as Josh hated hearing it. He could feel the other boy's scrutinizing gaze burning into his face as he began to shake his head, the edges of his cheeks turned roseate. 

"No, I didn't."

"You can tell me, Josh. Please don't think you have to hide from me, especially with shit like this," he pushed, clearly not convinced.

"I didn't, Ty, honestly. I just -," he broke off, unable to make eye contact. He wished that he was a better liar.

"What?"

"I just thought about it, I guess," he confessed, almost inaudibly. He felt his friend's grip on his hand tighten and then he was being enveloped in a bone crushing hug, the familiar scent of pine and aftershave and Tyler invaded his nostrils. It made his eyes sting with hot fresh tears which he tried in vain to hold back. 

"Don't you fucking ever even entertain the idea of it again, alright?" he spat, running a hand through the other boy's dyed hair. His eyes were mutinous but they were speckled with both passion and heartache. Josh had never seen so many emotions flit across somebody's face before, and it was a heavenly sight to behold. He found himself, for the thousandth time, feeling envious of how utterly alive Tyler was. And he didn't even realize it.

"I won't," he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, warmth swelling in his chest.

"I mean it. Just call me - fucking hell, I don't care if it's two in the morning, you call me, or message me, just let me know and I'll be here. I promise," he insisted; there was such power in his voice and it felt like he was speaking directly into the other boy's soul.

"You promise?"

"With all my heart," Tyler agreed, and his voice cracked as he spoke. They stayed like that a while longer, arms wrapped around each other in a tight and consoling embrace, it was hard to tell who needed it more in the end. It was the first time either one of them had felt so relaxed, and so vulnerable and so _free_ in months.

"Want to go and eat that pizza?" Tyler offered after a while, and it was then that Josh noticed just how ravenous he was, as if the stale spell that had made him feel like a zombie in his own skin had been broken. The hunger pangs were painful, but they meant that he was human, that he still still here - a beating heart, kind eyes and a hopeful smile.

And he realized, with a shock so great it rooted him to the bed, that that was more than enough, and it always had been.

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhh i can't fuckin write lmao
> 
> kudos and comments are seriously appreciated omfg!!


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